


Smoke and Branches

by ad_asterism



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Inspired by The Witcher
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 18:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18124631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ad_asterism/pseuds/ad_asterism
Summary: Geralt of Rivia hears tell of a dragon; a dragon that lives in a high tower in a wooded valley, stealing the valley's daughers. He goes to investigate......but something in this valley is not what it seems.





	Smoke and Branches

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a birthday gift for my wonderful brother, who loves the Witcher :) all credit for the crossover idea goes to him. Happy birthday!

* * *

 

 

 

The valley spread below him like a tidy quilt on a well-made bed; farm fields and furloughs dotted with tiny copses. A long, straight river ran through it like a silver arrow. With his witcher’s eyes he could just make out the white tower at its end, glowing in the distance where the late afternoon sun fell on its stones.

 

From this distance, the valley looked calm, peaceful; a prosperous farm holding belonging to some benevolent minor lord. A place of hard, honest work, of long golden threshing days and harvest fairs, where the lord came down on feast days to hold new infants and stand the men a round of drinks. The distant white tower seemed to watch over the valley, casting its pale eye from the distant peaks to the dark wall of the western woods, like a vigilant shepherd watching over a scattered flock. The whole scene was bucolic, domestic, charming; it invited one to hurry down the path into the nearest village, ready to lay down one’s burdens with a heavy sigh and stay as long as one liked.

 

The witcher knew better.

 

* * *

 

 

He’d been making his way through Rosya, nearly three months ago, when he first heard the tale. He’d stopped for the night in an inn to restock and give Roach a dry stable for the night. The countryside wasn’t particularly welcoming of witchers, and he’d been too tired to deal with villagers picking fights, so he’d kept his hood on and stayed in the shadows of the taproom while he finished his mead, senses aware and awake. 

 

The inn was particularly full on this wet, cold night, and business was good, looking to be a mix of local ploughmen, soldiers on the move, and lone travelers in threadbare gear. The barkeep had her hands full, moving briskly behind the bar to cut bread, exchange coins, and pour frothy heads of beer, and the serving girl was looking harried as she edged her way between tables. The room hummed with conversation, but Geralt’s attention kept catching on a rowdy group at a long table by the fire.

 

One man, at the table’s head, was spinning a tale for his raucous fellows, red-faced, gesturing with his tankard to emphasize his words. His voice cut through the hum of the crowded taproom, pitched to carry.

 

“The villagers work for the dragon,” the tale-spinner was insisting. “It’s a twisted place, this valley! Monstrous!” His voice ebbed for a moment, lost in the hum of the room, before emerging again. “No! They feed the dragon, they work for it, they keep it fed and fat and happy!” 

 

The villagers crowded close, listening intently, and the witcher could see more of the room falling silent to listen.

 

“And then, every ten years, by the light of the moon…” His voice dropped theatrically. “The villagers light their great fires and they give the dragon their most terrible tithe… a   _ girl-child. _ ” This last comment was taken with shock and horror, listeners gasping or shaking their heads.

 

On his stool in the shadow of the bar, the witcher was still as cold stone.

 

The drunkard shook his head sadly. “He comes every ten years, they say, and takes a beautiful girl of seventeen. The villagers parade them out for him in their Sunday best, all in a row, every girl in the valley of seventeen years, so that he can choose the most beautiful girl for his own.”

 

The listeners’ eyes were as round as saucers.

 

“And then,” he continued, “he clutches the girl in his  _ terrible claws—”  _ the man raised a threatening hand, fingers crooked into claws, and some in the room flinched. “And he carries her back to his pale tower, and  _ eats her alive.” _

 

“Clancy,” shouted a stout woman from behind the bar, “now you’re simply spinning yarn. No father nor mother would send their child just to be et like that!”

 

A man with an eyepatch shook his head. “It’s no tale,” he said. “My cousin’s cousin in that valley has a dragon-born girl, a beautiful child who’ll be the right age in the dragon year. It’s as though the girl’s already dead, the way her mum goes on. A right tragedy.”

 

Several at the bar murmured agreement, but the woman at the bar looked scandalized.

 

“Why would anyone in their right mind stay there, in the shadow of Wood and dragon alike?”

 

“These Polnyans,” said the spinner, seizing his story back with an overly-aggrieved shake of his head. “They’re not like you or me.”

 

The storyteller stood up from his seat, and it seemed the whole bar leaned in closer to hear him.

 

“Perhaps,” he said, “the dragon keeps them there, penned like animals. Perhaps they’re under a spell. Or perhaps--” He took a long swig of his ale, his rapt listeners waiting with wide eyes. “Perhaps those twisted Polnyans  _ like _ it.”

 

The table let loose a collective snarl, and began loosing war-cries. Others in the inn began beating their tankards against the tables, calling in loud voices for Polnya to be burned and dragon-lovers to be killed.  And that was the moment that Geralt remembered that Polnya and Rosya had been at war for the last twenty years, and so perhaps Rosyans were not the most objective bunch to be telling such a tale.

 

There was something odd about the story, too. He had met dragons; he knew what they did, how they worked, and this story felt off. The dragon in the tale was doing some very un-dragonish things. Still, there was something in the story that tugged at Geralt’s memory. It was on the tip of his thoughts, an idea just out of reach, worrying at the edges of his mind like a toothache. What dragon would need to eat a child every ten years? Why did that sound so familiar?

 

The witcher knew a lie when he heard one; and the man’s story had contained the ring of truth, no matter his biases. Whatever was happening in that valley, whatever exaggerations he may have brought in at the end, the storyteller had been speaking of a true thing.

Well. He wasn’t headed to Polnya any time soon, anyway. It wasn’t his problem. He downed the last of his beer, and pushed the idea away.

 

The witcher went to sleep that night dreaming of dark wings, teeth, and fiery breath.

 

* * *

 

 

It was months later that he found himself on his way to Polnya. He’d heard tell of an enormous bounty set by a prince there; something about a missing queen, a corrupted place, creatures that even the kingdom’s most powerful wizards quailed to fight. The prince, it was said, would pay any price to have his mother returned before his father could remarry.

So Geralt was on his way to Polnya.

 

And if he happened to choose a particular valley to pass through on his route, what of it? He wasn’t on a job. He wasn’t being paid. He’d just heard the smoked cheese was particularly good there.

 

Roach picked her way down into the valley as the sun vanished behind the mountains. She carried the witcher past peaceful glens and shadowy groves, skirting nervously through the fringe of the woods before ducking into them entirely. As they passed into the shadow of the trees, the mare started suddenly.

 

“Whoa, girl.” The witcher stroked her neck, but she pranced in place, eyes rolling. Geralt cast about with his keen senses. There was nothing nearby—no birds, no small animals rustling in the underbrush; and he became aware, suddenly, of the oppressive silence of the woods around them. The air itself seemed to weigh heavy on his lungs, and the trees seemed to lean over him.

 

Ahead of him, the path drew alongside a sun-dappled river. Roach was restless, tossing her head, so Geralt dismounted and led her to the dim bank to drink. She lowered her head, and the witcher took the chance to fill his waterskin, drinking deeply.

 

He was capping the skin when a chill ran down his spine. Looking up, he cast around, alert and guarded in the silent wood. There was nothing to be seen- not a creature, not a leaf stirring. But Geralt had learned to trust his instincts, in the years since he had become a witcher, and every fiber of his being was telling him that something was not right here.

Leading Roach back up the bank, Geralt mounted quickly. Without any prompting, she broke into a canter, headed along the river towards the light. They weren’t so far into the woods after all, he thought; they’d barely gone in at all.

 

He spurred the mare on, and she leapt forward, pelting headlong through the trees. Branches whipped at the mare’s flanks, and Geralt raised a hand to protect his face as twigs and leaves grasped at his hair and clothes.

 

As they burst out into the first meadow, the sense of doom lifted from both of them; and the witcher took a deep, full breath just as Roach slowed her flight. She shuddered. Geralt patted her neck absently, taking stock of their surroundings.

 

They had come out of the woods near a small village. Smoke rose from the chimneys, and the witcher could see tracks in the snow, signs of life and muddy ruts crisscrossing the square. He touched a heel gently to Roach’s flank and clicked his tongue, and she started forward reluctantly.

 

Usually, when Geralt entered a village this small, he drew some attention. At the very least, he usually had some small children chasing his horse, pestering for rides or coins; at best he was usually able to ask for directions. But here, not a soul emerged from their houses. Not a child ran down the street. There was no sign of a single living soul, despite the tracks in the snow and the obvious wear in the village. It was as though every person in the village had hidden the moment he emerged from the woods.

 

As Roach reached the village centre, he pulled her to a stop. The witcher stared.

 

The main village green was a blackened wasteland. It appeared to have been a sturdy enclosure, probably used for holding cows or sheep, which adjoined the village square. Now, even its fence was hardly recognizable. The whole field had been burned, and the ash lay cold and black and uneven, drifting in some places like snow into uneven mounds, a burned and horrible scene.

 

Geralt dismounted, swinging himself down off his mare to wade cautiously into the ankle-deep ash. The blackened fenceposts crumbled at his touch, and the ground crackled unevenly under his tread.

 

He crouched down, sweeping at the ash with his gloved hands. The ash drifted away in the breeze, baring glimpses of cracked and blackened bones, crumbling under his touch. The witcher stood.

 

Now that he was looking for them, he could see the shapes clearly; the bones and skulls of cattle. Cows and bulls alike, dozens of them; probably every one the village had owned, dead in the ash, blackened and starved. The field was thick with them, piled up against the fence as if they’d been running into it. As if they’d been running from something.

 

The witcher turned, studying the houses again, the rutted dirt road leading into the square. The houses were all small and sturdily built, cozy; but they all showed the wear and rot of hard times, of a place with no money to spare to replace a roof or buy an extra cart.

 

Or, Geralt supposed, to buy a new cow if yours got eaten by a dragon.

 

He brushed the ash off his gloves, turning to mount up again. But as Geralt swung on, Roach skittered sideways, tossing her head and snorting, almost causing him to lose his footing.

 

“Whoa, girl,” the witcher muttered, patting her neck as he settled into his saddle. “Whoa, easy there.”

 

She shook her head, rolling her eyes back. It was the ashes on the wind, he thought, the lingering smell of burnt hair making her uneasy.

 

“Don’t worry, girl,” he murmured, wheeling her round. “If there is a dragon in that tower, I’ll make sure you’re not crisped.”

 

She tossed her head once more, then settled, facing the end of the valley. She really was a rather good horse, Geralt thought. It’d be a shame for her to get eaten. He stroked her neck.

 

From where they stood in the dim square, Geralt could just see the white tower, high on the hill and still gleaming in the last of the afternoon sun like a winking eye. It was solid and sturdy, gleaming white in contrast to the ashen pallor of the village.

 

There was probably no dragon. It was a wyvern, or some other wyrm, coming out at night and scaring these foolish villagers until they thought it was bigger than it was.

 

The witcher rode on.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Up close, the shining white stone of the tower was a pale, washed-out grey. Where the stones had glowed in the evening light, the witcher could see their pale faces. Just below their surface, the stones glowed with crisscrossing lattices of faint light, barely there; the last lingering spells of the ancient people who had built the tower. He’d come across many such ruins on his hunts— towers built in ancient days, imbued with eldritch defensive magicks, now home only to malevolent creatures. It was always a pain when he triggered some ancient warding system simply by virtue of being a witcher.

 

He dismounted. For a second, he thought he saw a flicker of movement in an upper window. But no—it was probably just a trick of the light. Roach nudged at his back.

 

The gate to the tower rose before him, plain, dark wood with a shining knocker shaped like a coiled dragon. It winked at him.

 

He stepped towards the entrance.

 

As soon as he took a step, however, the tower seemed to step away from him, doubling the distance from the witcher to the door. He took another experimental step. The distance doubled again. And although he knew, logically, that the door must be immediately in front of him, the tower seemed now as though it was across a decently sized courtyard. He gritted his teeth, and focused on the door,  _ pushing _ against the enchantment. It felt like tiny claws pricking him through his clothes, holding him back, and the door careened even further into the distance. The witcher pushed again, and he could feel the enchantment pushing back, biting into him, carrying him backwards with every step, as if he was trying to run in a dream.

 

The witcher fell back, winded. He could feel the edges of the spell still. Although the door looked further away than ever, the details of the tiny dragon knocker were still clear and crisp, winking at him with its tiny golden eye.

 

The enchantment felt  _ smug. _

 

The witcher closed his eyes. He reached forward blindly, and felt cold wood and metal against his hand.

 

He closed his fingers around the tiny dragon, and knocked.

 

* * *

 

 

The hall was not what Geralt had expected.

 

He had seen dragons’ lairs before. He’d also, plenty of times, been told in no uncertain terms that it was  _ definitely  _ a dragon, the townsfolk had  _ seen  _ it, it was eating horses, of course it was a dragon, before spending a dark and smelly night killing wyverns or other, lesser wyrms. Village folk and city folk alike never knew the difference. (The only difference between city folk and village folk, for his part, was that he’d gladly charge a city burghermeister the full price for a dragon any day.) So he was more than prepared for the tower to house an overgrown wyvern, an earthwyrm, even a basilisk or two. He was ready for the doors to open on the stink of death, a cold hall with rotten bones and scorched walls, with a coiled wyrm nested at its heart.

 

What he was  _ not  _ prepared for was the plainfaced serving maid in stained homespun who opened the door to him, bobbing a shallow curtsey before scurrying backwards into the dimly lit hall. He was not prepared for the soft torchlight, the well-oiled hinges on the door, or the smell of fresh-baked bread wafting out into the chill night.

 

Geralt paused. He ran a hand along the vials on his belt, in an almost unconscious gesture.

 

Then he followed the maid inside.

* * *

 

The inside of the tower was cool flagstone, dimly lit by the torches lining the walls. He passed through an anteroom, following the girl’s torn, muddied hem through a second set of double doors into a much larger space.

 

He paused.

 

The hall, like the tower, was rectangular, with squat pillars forming a colonnade that led up to the main dais. The maid had vanished into the gloom, so Geralt padded slowly up the length of the hall, towards the thronelike chair at the end. As he paced the length of the hall, the torches flared, keeping the light level with him. It kept the rest of the hall dim and mysterious, keeping the visitor entirely in the light and masking the movements of anyone else. It was probably intended as an intimidation tactic.

 

It might have been an impressive bit of sorcery, to anyone but Geralt of Rivia.

 

“Another mercenary?” The voice cut through the gloom almost supernaturally. “You know we haven’t got time for this right now. Why did the wards let him in?”

 

As Geralt approached, a figure swept out of the shadows and up onto the dais, throwing himself onto the throne like a petulant child. In the light, Geralt could see the man was fastidiously clean, radiating irritation. His robes were richly embroidered brocade, so dark red they almost appeared black in the torchlight, and he lounged on the throne as if he owned the place. As he settled onto the throne, the torches flared, and the witcher could see the serving maid hanging back in the shadows behind the dais. Her face was obscured by the darkness- something that wasn’t usual for his witcher’s vision. It was almost as if the shadows were gathered around her, deliberately trying to deflect his attention. He didn’t like it.

 

Geralt came to a wary stop.  He eyed the robed man, silently taking in the hall, the shadows, the girl. Something was very strange here. Something was not as it seemed.

 

In the echoing silence, the man raised a brow. He rearranged his robe, and in the shadows, the maid shifted uncomfortably. Finally, the robed man sighed, steepling his fingers together in irritation.

 

“What do you want?”

 

“I heard tell of a dragon in this tower,” Geralt said flatly. There was still something off. Something he couldn’t quite place.

 

“You heard correctly. I am Sarkan,” said the tall man, examining the cuff of his sleeve. “And you are an intruder in this hall.”

 

“Sarkan,” Geralt echoed. He could taste the smoke on his tongue as the name burned his lips, and he understood, suddenly, the mistake of the Rosyan villagers. He took a breath. “Ah.”

Dragon, in the ancient naming tongue. The tongue that all Polnyan wizards used to take names for their own. The name of the most powerful wizard in Polnya, the one who had vanished from the court decades ago.

 

Geralt could feel the weight of the tower around him, the magic charged into its stones. He had assumed it all to be leftover power from the ones who’d made it, clawing to the surface for the presence of a witcher. He’d assumed very wrong, and very dangerously.

 

He hadn’t walked into the lair of a dragon- he’d walked into someplace twice as dangerous: a wizard’s stronghold. And yes, this particular wizard seemed more interested in his embroidered cuffs than in the pall over his valley, but Geralt knew better than any that with wizards, things were rarely as they seemed. Something was being hidden here. Something was off. The air of the tower was practically laden down with secrets.

 

“Yes,” said the Dragon irritably. “Are you just here to pick at my wards and try out my name? Because I shall tell you again, I  _ do not  _ have the time for this right now. Why are you here?”

 

Something was very wrong in this valley. Not only with the burned and cowering village, but in the dim shadows of the woods, the whispering stones of this pale tower. Geralt could feel it. If this foppish wizard was the only dragon in the valley- why was the whole place under such a pall? What was going on here?

 

Geralt’s eyes slid from the man on the dais to the girl half-hidden in the shadows behind him. Her face was lowered, but her hands were white-knuckled, wrung tightly together. He didn’t need a witcher’s keen eye to see the tension in her posture, the fear she was trying to hide.

 

“I am here to cleanse this valley of what troubles it,” he said softly, and the girl tensed.

 

To his surprise, the Dragon snorted. “You haven’t the faintest idea what troubles this valley, mercenary. And you could not have picked a worse time to come here. If you knew-”

 

“You know I’m no mercenary,” Geralt interrupted. “Any more than that cowering girl is a serving maid.”

 

The Dragon stood abruptly, and the shadows flared around him, clamoring up the walls before crowding back in to his feet. They reminded Geralt of nothing so much as a pack of dogs, yapping and growling at a stranger who dared come near their master.

 

Geralt thought of the tale he’d heard, back in the tavern in Rosya. A dragon —a wizard— who took a girl every ten years. Girls of no older than seventeen, the prettiest girls, the cleverest. Girls who never returned to their families.

 

He thought of all the mediocre sorcerers he’d met over the years, wizards who sought to increase their power by taking a source, a channel, to augment their own lifeforce by drawing on that of another.

 

How better to increase one’s control over the land than through a source whose family had lived on there for generations? How better to control a forest than to draw on its heart, steal its children, use their lives to prolong yours?

 

Even the youngest, strongest sources could only last a decade or so before they withered away. How convenient, if one’s tastes ran that way, to only take young girls, to drain them and bed them and use them, until they were shriveled and gone.

 

A tower with a rotten heart. A pall over a valley. A village with its wealth burned away—perhaps a punishment for a village that wanted its daughter back? A way to keep families in line so that a sorcerer could keep his familiar?

 

No dragon. No spitting wyrm. Just a corrupt sorcerer, stealing generations of sources.

 

Even as Geralt thought it, he knew that he’d never really believed that there was a dragon here at all.

 

The witcher’s skin prickled. His eyes narrowed.

 

The girl shrank against the wall.

 

The Dragon stood coolly, shadows seething around him.

 

“There is nothing in this tower for you,” he said. “Whatever bounty you are seeking here, you have been misled.”

 

“I told you,” Geralt said, “I’m no mercenary. I’m not interested in any bounty. I have one purpose.”

 

He drew his sword.

 

“I kill monsters.”

 

“Agnieszka,” the Dragon snapped, “ _ now! _ ”

 

Geralt lunged for the sorcerer, but the girl stepped up next to him, eyes wide. She shrieked a word he didn’t hear, and threw her arms defensively over her face.

 

The whole hall seemed to rock back from her with a quiet  _ thump. _

 

Geralt was thrown backwards. The last thing he saw was the girl’s stricken face, hovering over him, and then he knew no more.

 

* * *

 

 

When the witcher opened his eyes, he found himself lying on a not-particularly comfortable chaise, staring up at unfamiliar rafters of dark wood. All around him, bookshelves rose tall into the gloom, cloth and leather-bound covers gleaming in the low light. There was a fire burning nearby, the comfortable tang of smoke mingling with the dusty smell of books.

 

He didn’t recognize his surroundings at all. And while this wasn’t exactly a new experience for Geralt, it certainly didn’t line up with what he last remembered. Hadn’t he been in a fight…? Hadn’t there been…?

 

He turned his head, and tensed as a figure came into view, adding logs to the fire.

 

_ The familiar. _

 

He’d been fighting the sorcerer, the dragon in the tower. The girl had moved against him- had defended her kidnapper, even. He hadn’t expected the girl to be so fully under the sorcerer’s control- to be not only source but conduit. It was a shame; it meant she would have to be killed too, for the sorcerer to die. Geralt had hoped at least to spare her.

 

All this passed through his mind in an instant, as the pieces snapped back together, and before he had even consciously registered all this, he was moving, springing up off the couch towards the girl, thoughts tumbling wildly through his head.

 

If he could only deal with the girl before the wizard returned- he could deal with a wretched wizard on his own- he could stop this-

 

He was halfway to her before he felt himself gripped around the middle by an invisible force and flung backwards to land on the couch. He found himself sprawled on his back, looking up at the elegantly robed figure of Sarkan.

 

“I’ll thank you to  _ not _ attack my student again,” said the Dragon.

 

Up close, without the shadows and the mystery, he was a pinched, pale-looking man, the kind who clearly spent too much time buried in books. In the firelight, his richly brocaded robes only emphasized the dark shadows under his eyes.

 

He didn’t  _ look  _ terribly threatening- so what was this irrational hatred thrumming through his veins? Why did Geralt feel the immediate urge to attack him?

 

Geralt was surprised to find himself nearly growling. That was… odd, to say the least. And not like him. Actually, now that he thought about it, it wasn’t especially like him to immediately rush at an unarmed girl, within seconds of seeing her.

 

What was going on here?

 

“Here. Drink this.” The man pushed a stone vial to his lips, and Geralt felt his stomach turn at the smell. He shoved the vial away and sprang up.

 

Or, at least- he tried to. When he went to move his hands, the witcher found himself bound in place with some sort of invisible ropes that slowed his movements. Instead of springing up and away from the sorcerer, his hands moved slowly, as though he was trying to push them through mud or deep water. As he strained against the bond, he felt as though he was trying to lift a great weight. He pushed against it for a few seconds more, and finally gave up. His hands fell back into his lap as though weighted down with stone.

 

“What did you do to me?” he bit out.

 

“Drink, or I’ll make you drink,” snapped the Dragon. Geralt glared.

 

The girl—Agnieszka, he remembered— was behind him now, leafing through a small, natty book. “You’ve already drunk two vials, if that helps,” she informed the witcher.

 

Her voice was sweeter than he’d expected, low and resonant. She didn’t  _ sound _ like a possessed familiar.

 

“It won’t harm you,” she continued. “We’re trying to purge the Wood from you. This will help- the more you can get down, the easier it will be.”

 

As she spoke, Geralt felt something tugging at his attention, pulling at his veins and crying for him to move, to attack, to fight.

 

And that- that, of everything, felt familiar. The feeling of something strange in his veins, a new and different voice inside him, animating him, speeding him, tugging him forward by reflex before his mind could catch up- that he knew, from his years at Kaer Morhen.

 

“The Wood,” he said, pushing the words out around the guttural growl growing in his throat. 

 

“What is the Wood?”

 

_ No!  _ said something inside him.  _ Kill them! The sorcerer and his familiar- they lie! _

 

Geralt paused.

 

He knew what it felt like to have alchemy poured down his throat, to have supernatural forces working in his veins. He knew the feeling of a body that changed faster than he could keep up. He knew what each of his vials did, how each of the modifications on his body shifted his senses, what each artificial Witcher instinct felt like thrumming through his veins.

 

This feeling- this was  _ not  _ that.

 

This was something else entirely.

 

“The Wood,” said Sarkan, still holding out the vial, “is a malign force that corrupts and changes everything it touches. It tells you what you want to hear, and takes you for its own.” 

He glanced towards the girl, and back down to the witcher, brows furrowing impatiently. “It especially likes to take things that will grow its power. Things like… oh, say, genetically modified witchers?”

 

“Ah,” said Geralt.

 

Under his skin, something green and shadowed put out more invisible shoots. Now that he was paying attention, he could feel its creeping growth.

 

The Dragon sighed dramatically.

 

“I’d rather  _ not _ have to fight the Wood in the form of a supernaturally quick fighter in my  _ own _ tower, so if you’d please just  _ drink this _ so we can get it out of you already?” He brandished the vial again, and Geralt felt the thing inside him, cold and calculating and full of hate.

 

Geralt already had more than enough strange magic in his body. He  _ really _ didn’t need any additional malevolent forces making him even more spooky than usual.

 

He took the vial and drank.

 

The thing under his skin practically  _ hissed _ with displeasure, and Geralt felt suddenly as though his throat was closing, but he swallowed doggedly, emptying the vial. As soon as it was emptied, he felt it taken from his hand, immediately replaced with another. He drank, and drank, until he choked suddenly, coughing, and felt the Wood rising up in him.

 

“Do it now!” he said, and doubled over, fighting the thing down. He retched drily, and found himself spewing fine green pollen into his own hands.

 

The Dragon had gone white. He shoved the witcher back into the chair, gripping his shoulders tightly, and began to chant a complex incantation. It sounded pretentious, thought the witcher distantly. He’d liked the disgusting potion better.

 

As Sarkan chanted, his hands began to glow a warm yellow-white. He shoved the magic under the Witcher’s skin, and Geralt felt it eating its way along his veins. It reminded him of when he’d once had to stick his hand into snowmelt to heal a burn; the same sort of numbing pain, creeping along and cancelling out the first, more dangerous wound. Geralt felt it chasing down his veins, uprooting and burning away the green, fetid shoots.

 

The Dragon kept chanting.

 

As Geralt felt the shoots recoil, he could see sweat breaking out on the man’s brow.

Agnieszka must have seen it too, because she came to stand behind her mentor, placing her hands on his shoulders. Geralt expected her to join in on the chant, but instead she began a sort of counterpoint, adding a single, simple word here and there, as if she was creating an echo or a drumbeat. When she spoke, the light flared, and Geralt could feel it under his skin, as if each word created an extra wave of heat. He could feel the green shoots shriveling under the force of the combined spell, shriveling and burning and hiding- and, no, wait, they were hiding deep inside him, in the parts of him that were changed and artificed-

 

The Dragon made to take his hands off, but the Witcher shook his head.

 

“Don’t stop.” He was surprised to hear his own voice, cold and rough. It interrupted the graceful sound of the spell the two wizards were weaving around him. “It’s still in the Witcher parts.”

 

The two nodded, eerily in sync, and Geralt sagged back, letting them finish their working. 

 

They spoke another long phrase, and then the girl reached across her mentor to lay a warm, callused hand over his heart. She spoke two more unfamiliar words, and a final burning wave washed over him.

 

The wizard let go of him, carefully.

 

Geralt sat up off the couch, inhaling deeply. He rotated his shoulders, and exhaled a long breath.

 

“I think it’s gone.”

 

The Dragon frowned at him. “ _ I think  _ isn’t good enough,” he said icily, and then sighed, looking suddenly exhausted. “We’ll have to keep you under observation for a few days. I can’t risk a corrupted creature getting loose in my tower.”

 

“But he might be able to help,” objected the girl.

 

The witcher’s brows rose. Her tone was certainly less…unctuous than most wizards’ apprentices he’d had the misfortune to meet.

 

“Absolutely not,” snapped the Dragon, rising to return to the table.

 

“But with the right protection spells—”

 

“He would turn on us in minutes, he’s already had it in him once—”

 

“And withstood it for longer than any person should have been able to! You said it yourself, the corruption was far less extensive than we thought would possible! Is it because he’s a Witcher? This could be a—”

 

The Dragon slammed a book down on the table. “This is  _ not  _ up for debate.”

 

“Erm,” said the Witcher, and the two turned abruptly, as though they’d forgotten he was in the room. “Might I know what exactly we’re  _ not _ debating doing?”

 

Sarkan sighed, but Agnieszka set her face stoically, rolling her eyes at her bad-tempered mentor.

 

“We’re going into the Wood, after the Prince,” she said. “We think—from what we could follow of his journey—that he made it nearly to the center, and that his mages did some damage to it somehow. If we can attack now, while the Wood is weak, we might be able to finish it once and for all, and save the valley! We have to go at once!”

 

Geralt frowned and made to speak, but the Dragon spoke over him.

 

“We’re going in the morning. And we’re not taking the mercenary.”

 

“But you said it’s weak now!” The girl crossed her arms. “We need to end this!”

 

“It’s no good going in the night. The dark will not be our friend.” The Dragon shook his head. “At any rate, I’m too worn out to make any sort of attack on the Wood tonight.” The girl opened her mouth, but he forestalled her with a raised hand. “No. That’s final. We’re not doing this without proper preparation, which means going in at full strength or not at all. We’re not going to do what that fool of a prince did.”

 

The last piece clicked neatly into place in the Witcher’s head. “The prince… this isn’t, by chance, the same prince that was paying any price for those willing to save his mother from a cursed place?”

 

Sarkan made a face that in anyone else might have been called a smile. “The very same. Although I doubt he will be able to pay you any price at all, now that he’s gone and gotten himself killed.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“He showed up here a sennight past and took himself and a pack of knighted fools into the forest with him.

 

“Good riddance,” remarked the girl, but the wizard scowled.

 

“Foolish child,” he said, “you don’t know a thing. The king’s mages will be down on us like flies if I don’t go in there and find him now. Not that they care, of course, but he’s got to make it look like he’s made an effort, which means  _ I’ve _ got to make it look like I’ve made an effort. I should never have let him go in there.”

 

“But you said the Wood would overtake the valley!” Agnieszka’s brows were furrowed together. “We’re going in to stop it, not to find the prince!”

 

“Yes, but he’s the reason we’re forced to go and do it _now._ I wanted more time Besides, we’d best find the damn prince if we don’t want the king to raze this tower to the ground on principle! _”_ The wizard threw up his hands. “Am I the only one in this _blasted_ tower who pays a lick of attention to politics?”

 

“I shall come with you, in the morning, then, if you’re going into the Wood,” said Geralt. He got up off the couch, pleased to find the invisible restraints gone. “That’s what I came here for, anyway, I suppose. Although— how has that Queen had been in there for?”

 

The wizard looked impassive. “Over a decade.”

 

Geralt remembered the green under his skin, and suppressed a shudder. “So… the chances that she’s still in there are…?”

 

“Not good.”

 

Agnieszka’s mouth was set in a firm line. “We still might be able to save her. And if not, we can at least save the valley.”

 

The Dragon rolled his eyes. “Unless we all get killed, in which case the Wood will use our collective powers to roll like a horrible green wave over the entire kingdom.” He clapped his hands, once, and a reddish wave of light washed over Geralt, spreading around him to form a globe of sparkling white lights. “Either way, I’m still keeping you under guarding spell for the night, just to be on the safe side. If that’s agreeable to you?” he added, with a masterful façade of politeness.

 

Geralt kept a straight face. “Of course.”

 

Sarkan spoke a few long words, and the lights vanished, leaving Geralt blinking away red afterglows.

 

“Well, then,” said the Dragon. “Since we evidently have a long day of monster-slaying ahead of us tomorrow, I’m off to bed. Agnieszka will show you to an appropriate room.” His embroidered robe swished ostentatiously as he turned to make his exit.

 

Something occurred to Geralt, as the Dragon made to leave.

 

“One last question—how does one get corrupted? Through drinking the water?”

 

The Dragon paused at the threshold. “Yes, or getting a scratch, or simply by breathing the air of that accursed place.”

 

“Then,” said the witcher politely, “you may want to go and…” he hesitated, “…deal, with the horse tethered outside your gate. If it’s still there,” he added, as an afterthought.

 

Sarkan stared at him. “I’m getting too old for this,” he muttered.

 

The witcher and the girl watched as he turned on his heel, marching dramatically out the door.

 

“Is he always like that?” Geralt asked.

 

The girl snorted, face crinkling with laughter, and the witcher was surprised to realize that she wasn’t as plain as he’d first thought. Now that the wizard was gone from the room, her plain homespun seemed less drab and simply… comfortable, perhaps. The lines of her face looked more relaxed as she laughed.

 

No one in this tower was quite who they’d seemed to be, he thought, as he followed the girl’s dirty hem up a spiraling stone stair. The whole day had been rather… unexpected. And even in the witcher’s line of work, it wasn’t often that he was quite this far off the mark.

 

Some time later, he lay on a narrow bed in a tiny tower room, and listened to the sounds of screaming, horrible neighs from below. The strange sounds were interspersed with chanting and odd cracking noises—the creature that had once been Roach, it seemed, was giving the Dragon a run for his money.

 

Finally, Geralt heard a frustrated shout, followed by a dull roar, and then—silence.

He heard the slam of a door, distant, and then gradually became aware of a smell like barbeque, charred meat and burnt hair.

 

Ah.

 

It was a shame.

 

She really had been a rather good horse.

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you're familiar with the Uprooted universe, you may have noticed that I've changed some plot points around. In this AU, the prince went into the Wood without them, and got himself killed, which is why they're gonna take Geralt with them, I guess, and why Geralt didn't just run into the prince in the tower in the first place. 
> 
> This is very much not my usual, so please let me know what you thought! I'm not sure I characterized everyone quite right and I'd love to hear how it reads :)
> 
> RIP roach


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